waterbear

This is exactly my point. A drinking water sanitizer is NOT the same a one for a pool or spa. Drinking water is sanitized in a holding tank--a closed system with a long contact time so a slow kill time is not an issue.. A pool or spa is an open system with contaminants being introduced constanly (leaves and pollen falling in; a bird flying overhead that scores a direct hit; The dog going for a dip; sweat, urine and feces introduced by EACH bather that enters the water--no matter how clean they are or think they are!--you get the point.This requires a residual sanitizer IN the water that will act fast. There are only 3 such EPA approved ones--chlorine, bromine, and biguanide. It is interesting that the instruction sheet says that chlroine or bromine is optional but recommends that it be used and that at the very bottom it says: "NOTE: This Guide information is reliable to the best of our knowledge. The suggestions contained herein are the opinion of D. Williams & Co. Determine for yourself if these products are suitable for your objectives and applications. D. Williams & Co. makes no guarantee of satisfactory results from reliance on this Guide, and disclaims any liability for any resulting loss or damage. This information is not intended to supersede or conflict with federal, state, or local statutes or regulations." It is also interesting that the company call the product an algicide/bactericide and NOT a sanitizer It is wll known that copper is an effective algicide (just look at the number of copper based algicides on the market!) and that it does exhibit some bacteriostatic properties given enough contact time (it is, after all, a poisonous metal!). It is NOT viricidal. According to the MSDS the main ingredient in it is copper sulfate. There is most likely a chelating agent also since chelated copper is much easer to dose and tends to be more "time release" and less toxic than unchelated copper (Just ask anyone who has ever used copper in a fish tank to kill parasites--invertebrates are very sensitive to copper and many fish parasites are invertebrates.). I find the most telling thing in the instructions is the recommendation of shocking with dichlor if the spa has periods of non used, if the water is cloudy of if there is a high bather load! Chlorine free system my A**!

What chemgeek said is totally correct. You would be better off using bleach! My main caution is to be aware that chlorine and biguanide are NOT compatible and if there is any chlorine residue left when you restart your biguanide system your water will turn an interesting color, to say the least! If you are doing a biquanide to chlorine conversion you need to start by draining and refilling, adding bleach to obtain at least 15 ppm free chlorine (up to about 20 ppm) and make sure that the chlorine level will hold overnight and the water stays clear and does not cloud or turn off color. If so you have oxizided all the biguande in your system and can then replace the filter with a new one and enjoy your chlorine system. If not. ,maintain the free chlorine levels at at east 15 ppm until they hold and the water is clear, then replace the filter. IF you are trying to kill white water mold or pink slime (both bacterial) then a free chlorine level in the neighborhood of 20-30 ppm is usually effective.

No I am NOT IN ERROR!!!!!!!! The kit you have contains dichlor which is a form of stabilized chlorine fo, as you put it' startup and occasional shocking'. Be aware that copper WILL keep your water algae free but not necessisarily free of pathogens. Copper has a very slow kill time compared to chlorine. It is interesting that Australia passed legislation last year requiring NORMAL and not reduced chlorine levels for copper based systems in light of recent research on kill times for water borne pathogens. My info does NOT come from the manaufacturer's hype and nyberbole but from my knowlegde of water chemistry! Cleanwateblue is simply a chelated copper product. Chelated copper''s been used in fish culture for a long time now, but then again, an aquiculture tank is not meant to be a sterile system as is a hot tub. The product might have an EPA registration number but be aware that the ONLY 3 EPA approved sanitizers for pools and hot tubs are chlorine, bromine and biguanide. Metal or 'mineral' based products are apprived either as auxillery products or as algaecides, NOT primary sanitizers to be used alone.Uusually a minimun .5 ppm free chlorine residual is required (and this really is too low!) BTW, it is interesting how they say on their website that it is compatible with both chlorine and bromine. Your dichlor for 'occasional shocking' (which should be maintaining a FC of at LEAST .5 ppm but in reality should be at least 2 ppm if you really want a santizied tub) is the residual chlorine that you are adding. You will not grow algae with the amount of copper in the water but you will have bactieria! Bottom line, Copper can cause stains. If you haven't had them yet it meand you either have not seen the staining or you have been lucky....just give it time. In the 'old days' they put copper in the pool in the hopes of staining the plaster an even blue-green. This stain was very effective a preventing algae growth. (Any "Old time pool guys" out there remember this?)

The non chlorine shock is potassium monopersulfate. It was developed and pateneted by DuPont under the trade name of Oxone and they still sell it under that name for pool and spa use (and hudreds of other uses such as denture cleaners, ectching printed circuit boards, shrinkproofing wool and many others) The majority of MPS is still manufactured by DuPont and repackaged by all these other companies. I would shop for price! MPS is MPS. You can even find it at Home Depot, Walmart and other stores like that. I have even seen it at Ace Hardware under a store brand name of pool and spa supplies.

Could be the beginnings of white water mold, which is very common in biguanide spas and pools after a few years. You have to understand that your sanitizer. PMBH or biguanide, is something that bacieria can develop a resistance to after a while (sort of like they do to antibiotics, not a bad analogy if I say so myself). The peroxide is simply your oxidizer. it is NOT your sanitizer. It can kill bactieria but it's purpose is to oxidize the dead bacteria killed by the PMBH. PMBH works by causing the cells to literally explode, which is the source of the 'baquagoo' that is all too common in biguanide santitized hot tubs and pools that can be seen as a scum along the water line and in the filter. If you truely are allergic to both chlorine and bromine (bromine is known sensitizer but chlorine allergy is MUCH rarer! A PROPERLY MAINTAINED chlorine system is fairly non irritating, actually probably less so than the peroxide oxidizer used in a biguanide system) then you are stuck. If the problem is bad you can drain, refill, and purge the spa with an enzyme product and start over but unless you totally sanitize and sterilize the spa in the process you will most likely introduce the same resistant strain of bacteria into the spa. Many, if not most people who start with biguanide based systems eventually switch over to chlorine exactly for these reasons. It seems that a biguanide spa or pool will run fine for about 2-5 years and then it starts to self destruct. You can literally pour hundreds of dollars into it each month trying to maintain clear, clean water but the situation usually just keeps getting worse. There are, of course, exceptions. Some people run fine on biguanide for years and never have problems but they seem to be in the minority. Perhaps they don't use their spas or pools very much. It is very easy to keep a spa with a very low bather load sanitized (biguanide, copper, silver all work in these cases) but once you start actually using it on regular basis chlorine and bromine really win hands down on keeping the water clear, clean and sanitized. Ozone might be of some help in your case but, once again, ozone is more effective as an oxidizer than a sanitizer. Also, it does not have any residual activity in the water (actually, a properly set up ozone generator will leave NO ozone in the water in the bathing area since ozone is toxic) so it will only work while your generator is running and the pump is on.

Here are some quick answers to your questions. You need to establish a bromide reserve in the water. Bromine tablets can do it by themselves but it can take literally weeks until enough dissolve. Some people crush about 6 of them up and put them in the water on each water change to achieve this but it really is easier and cheaper to add a packet or two of sodium bromide! It is available from such compaines as HTH, Leisure Time, Robarb (Rendezvous), and others. Chem geek is right in that the bromine tablets contain both bromine and chlorine to oxidize the bromine into active sanitizer. There are basically 2 ways to do a bromine system--2 step and 3 step. In the 2 step system you add the sodium bromide to the water to the proper concentration, then add oxizider on a regular basis (usually, chlorine, MPS, or ozone, or a combination of them) to oxidize the bromide ions into hypobromous acid, your active sanitizer. It's pretty easy but does require a bit of attention daily to maintain the bromine levels in the water. A 3 step system is identical with the addition of bromine tabs in a floater. This will help maintain a more constant bromine level in the water with less maintenance but otherwise there is no difference. The three step system costs more since the bromine tablets are the most expensive part of this equation. The dimethylhydantoin in the tablets seems to have a similar (but not identical) function in a bromine system as CYA does in a chlorine system. It tends to stablilize it but, like CYA, too much is not good. Not that much info is readily available on the effects of dimethylhydantion other than that it makes the bromine more difficult to destroy, a consideration if you ever want to switch over to a chlorine system. If you add sodium bromide to your water and have an ozonator you might be able to achieve the constant bromine level without the floater since the ozone is constantly oxidizing the bromide while it is on. However, you might deplete the bromide reserve quickly this way, leading to a shorter time between drain and refills. You still need to superoxize (shock), usually about once a week to destroy organics in the water. I prefer plain, unscented laundry bleach for shocking a bromine spa. 1 cup per 250-300 gallons is about right.

Chemgeek, as usual, has given you excellent advice! I would like to add a few thoughts and reinforce some of the things he said. First, ditch the test strips and invest in a good drop based kit. His suggestion of the Taylor K-2006 is an excellent one if you are using dichlor (and is the kit I would suggest also)! You spent literally thousands on your tub. Is about $60 really a lot to spend on a GOOD test kit? You would be surprised at how easy it really makes water balancing and maintinance! Nature2 and metal removers are NOT compatible. Putting copper and silver into the water (which the Nature2 does, the cartidge contains copper sulfate and silver nitrate--copper and silver are the 'minerals' that are going into your water!) and then deavtivating them with a sequestering agent (the MetalX, or any other metal remover) is a bit counterproductive! I would ditch the Nature 2, especially if you are on well water and have an iron or other metal problem. Their instuction pamphlet incuded in the copyright 2006 boxes (but not the older ones or on their webisite) no longer is a low chlorine system. They no longer advocate a .5 ppm FC level in a spa. In fact, you should NEVER let the FC in your spa drop below 2 ppm with or without a N2 or ozone ( or any other 'mineral', 'chemical free', miracle', etc. type of product) if you want properly sanitized water! (Cryptosporidium and pseudomonas are pretty difficult critters to kill, it has been found out by recent research!) The newer instuctions have you shock to 10 ppm and maintain about a 2-6 ppm Free Chlorine level in the spa. You would do this WITHOUT the Nature2 cartridge if you were using only chlorine! Know what the N2 is really best at? Generating revenue for your dealer every 4 months when you replace the cartridge! (and I sell them at work! Don't recommend them but do sell them.) Ozone depletes chlorine and chlorine depletes ozone. Ozone plays with bromine much better! It actually helps oxidize the bromide reserve in the water into active sanitizer. The advantage to ozone it that it will kill microbes and oxidize organics so in theory it will lessen your sanitizer demand. (The ozone takes care of the oxidation so your sanitize doesn't have to.) However, ozone has no residual killing power. In fact, in a properly set up system there should be NO detectable ozone in the water of the tub! (Ozone is toxic). Residual santizer is necesary because every person who enters the tub, no matter how clean they are, introduce sweat, urine, and feces into the water. This means organics that need to be oxidzec and microbes that need to be killed quickly!. Back to my first point--ozone depletes chlorine and chloirine depletes ozone. They can work well together but you need to get them ajusted properly so the ozone is doing enough of the oxidizng and having enough chlorine to act as residual sanitizer. This means at least 2 ppm FC at all times! I know it all sounds complicated but it really ain't rocket science!

Hope this is helpful.

Taylor Technologies makes 2 test kits for ozone, the K-1818 and the K-1822. Both are pricey! (Retail over $100). There really won't tell you much anyway since if your ozonator IS working properly there should be NO residual ozone in the water since ozone is a toxic gas! try turning off the ozone for a week and see if your chlorine demand goes down (in other words, you need less chlorine to maintain a proper free chlorine level in the spa). If it does then your ozone is most likely working properly.

Ozone will deplete your chlorine levels in the water. You need to add enough chlorine to maintain a 4-6 ppm FC level when you enter the spa. IMHO, ozone is miuch more effective with bromne since it actually activates the bromide reserve in the water into active bromine santizer and tends to help keep the bromine levels more constant. While ozone and chlorine can work together it is a bit harder to adjust the levels needed and the chlorine is killed off more quickly. The high temperatures in a hot tub alone can make it difficult to maintain proper free chlorine levels in the water even without ozone. In no circumstances should you ever let your free chlorine readings be below 2 ppm if you want to maintain santized water.

An enzyme product might be of help here. I have personally seen NaturalChemisty's Pool First Aid remove an oil slick from a pool and I believe their SpaPurge is a similar type of product for spas.

Here is your procedure (and my 2 cents! ): On filling the spa and after balancing water add sodium bromide (Lieusre time sells it in little packets) at the rate of 1/2 oz per 100 gallons to establish your bromide reserve. Now shock your spa and put your floater and tabs in. (I like to use laundry bleach to shock at the rate of 1 cup per 250 gallons). When total bromine level has dropped below 10 ppm you can enter spa. Adjust the floater to maintain a total bromine of between 4-6 ppm, never go in the spa if the bromne is below 2 ppm and shock weekly. Bromine levels should rise above 10 ppm on shocking. Wait for them to drop below 10 ppm before entering spa. Even if you use MPS to shock the bromine levels will rise and you still need to wait before entering spa (Bromine works differently than chlorine with MPS shock). It's a good idea to test your water weekly for TA and Calcium and adjust as necessary before shocking. You should ideally be testing total bromine and pH daily (at least 2-3 times a week) and adjust as needed. Drain and refill about every 3-4 months and that's about it. One final thing. If you do not have metals in your water a metal remover is not necesary, If you maintain your spa properly you should have NO need for defoamers, clarifiers, etc. If you calcium is below about 400 ppm and you keep tabs on your pH and keep it in line you should not have a need for descalers. The only supplimental products that I personally have found beneficial are enzymes and borates. Enzymes will help keep a scum line from forming in your spa (I have had good results with NaturalChemisty's Spa Magic) and the borates in the concentration of 30-50 ppm will have multiple benefits such as better pH stability, algaestatic properties that will decrease your sanitizer demand (and bromine usage to maintain the same 4-5 ppm level!) , 'softer' feeling water, clearer looking water. I know it sounds like snake oil but they really do work! Most borate products are called water 'enhancers' and their main ingredients are usually sodium tetraborate and sodium bisulfate to counteract the pH rise created by the tetraborate. Proteam makes such a product for spa use called Gentle Spa. In fact their entire Genle Spa line is a bromine bases sanitizer system that uses borates and MPS for shock. The only other thing you might want to pick up is a 'scumball', 'scumbug', or 'sunsorb'. These are all different brands of the same thing. It is a sponge like material that floats in the spa and removes oils and scum from the surface. They really work and will last you a season or two before needing replacement. Fianlly, invest in a GOOD drop based test kit and don't rely on test strips for water balance. I personally like the Taylor K-2106 for bromine. If you think about $60 is too much to spend on a test kit think about how much you spent on your spa to put things in perspective. A good test kit will actually make your spa care much easier!

If you are smelling a chlorine smell I would test again for combined chloramines. You had a problem with them before and the drain and refill might not have eliminated the source if there is something that is introducing organics into the water! If you have no combined chloramines and are still noticing the chlorine smell then I would guess it is as chem_geek explained it.

Hope this helps!

Truer words were never spoken. The problem, however, is where do they go to get educated? Manufacturers websites and literature? (Our spa is the best because we put in more jets. Our spa is the best because it is insulated. Our spa is the best because it has 2 pumps...and so on ad nauseum). Chemical companies websites and literature? (Our chemicals are better which is why we charge more money! We don't sell you sodium bicarbonate, we sell you sodium hydrogen carbonate!--Actual manufacturers spiel, parapharased a bit!...Sodium hydrogen carbonate and sodium bicarbonate are 2 different names for EXACTLY THE SAME CHEMICAL we commenly call baking soda! Or my FAVORITE--any of the variations on why chlorine is BAD and you should avoid it at all costs in your spa and use our proprietary product (usually some form of copper and perhaps some enzymes) but if your water looks cloudy in a month just add half a jug of bleach to it and it will clear up. (Once again a loose paraphrase off a manufacturers website on their 'ECOlgoically sound ONE way to keep your spa clean!) Add on product companies websites and literature? (Our 'MIneral System" will give you a chemical free spa!--last time I checked the silver,copper, and zinc added by these systems were chemicals) The local dealer who depends on selling the products these companies put out? (How many dealers tell their customers the reason they want to sell them the 'mineral system' is the money they will make on replacement cartridges every 4 months? We sell them so I know what it can amount to!) "You need the metal remover, the scale reducer, the sanitizer, the shock , the defoamer, the algaecide, and the clarifier. Just add a bottle a week of everthing and your spa will be fine! Don't forget the scumball, the fragrence, the water enhancer (now if this is a borate based product it is actually worthwhile!) the weekly enzyme, and the purge for every time you drain and refill! Of course we can test your water....let me get my bottle of test strips!" Get the picture? Unfortunately, it is an all too common one! Even worse is the dealer( sorry, I won't even use that word, saleman might be a better choice!) who doesn't have a clue, reads over some manufacturers phamplet, talks to a rep who just wants to incease his bottom line and now thinks he is an expert on water chemisty and maintenance! Also an all too common occurance! I can site an example of someone on this forum who no longer posts in the water chemistry sections for being called on the carpet one too many times after giving dubious, at best, advice to newbies looking for help...but I won't, whoops, I guess I just did!) An educated consumer will fall out of the trap of paying $3.50 to $5.00 a pound (actual prices by the way for 2 major brands on the internet!) of alkalinity increaser when in reality it is nothing more than plain old baking soda they can buy at the grocery store for $2 for a 4 lb. box! (and get USP grade to boot). An educated consumer seems to be exactly what the industry does NOT want! IMHO, the main reason sales are down is that there is a lack of credibility to the industry and once the consumer starts to get educated that becomes readily apparent to them! A media campaign and some marketing hype sound very nice but perhaps what might be in order is taking a long hard look at the industry through the eyes of the consumer!

It very possilby did but you need to figure into it the last factor that I mentioned. Make sure your total bromine readings are below 10 ppm wihenever you test your pH and TA!

Another thought occurred to me. Have you used any MPS ( Potassium monopersulfate, non chlorine shock) in addition to the dichlor and bleach? MPS will test as Total chlorine and can give readings such as you posted. Taylor markets a kit to remove the interferance to the total chlorine test to be used in conjunction with their other test kits for those that use MPS so that accurate readings can be obtained. Most people ignore Total chlorine readings (or should at any rate) when they use non chlorine shock instead of chlorine or in addition to chlorine for shocking. It works by a different chemical means than chlorine does and needs to be used differently to be effective. It will NEVER cause breakpoint chlorination to occur (means it won't burn off chloramines) but needs to have a residual concentration in the water at all times to burn off ammonia and organics BEFORE they combine with the free chlorine to produce chloramines.

The reason your bottle of test strips said that the TA should be between 120-150 (and something that you did not make clear and I know I made an assumption otherwise and I think chem_geek did too) is because you use bromine for sanitation. I assumed you used chlorine since you have a Taylor K-2005 test kit. This kit is usable with bromine but I personally would get a Taylor K-2106 kit which is made for bromine and uses FAS-DPD testing which is far superior and much easier to read than DPD testing. Back to the reason for a higher TA with bromine, actually 2 simple reasons 1. Most people on bromine use tabs which are acidic 2. most people on bromine shock with MPS (non chlorine shock) which is acidic. The problem with this is that if you use a 2 step bromine system without tablets (only use sodium bromide in the water to create a bromide reserve) and 'shock' with liquid chlorine(bleach) and/or use ozone ( which will lower the amount of shock needed so if you use MPS you will be using a lot less) then the drop in pH and TA does not occur in the same way and your pH will tend to shoot up. The good part is that bromine does not care as much about pH as does chlorine so a pH of 8.0 is not that critical but can lead to scaling if your calcium is high. The constant use of low pH products has a tendency to keep lowering the TA and pH so a higher TA tends to keep things in line longer. The same thing is seen in swimming pools that are chlorinated with trichlor tabs and to a lesser extent, dichlor granules. However, while running the TA high migh mean that sodium bicarbonate does not have to be added as often under these conditions and might mean that your pH MIGHT remain a bit more stable (or climb too high), IMHO, it is still easier to keep the TA lower and just keep tabs on your pH and TA through proper testing and adjust when necessary. Ideally, once your water is balanced sanitizer and pH should be tested daily (maybe in a perfect world! , try for at least 2-3 times a week!) TA should be tested weekly and calcium hardness should be weekly or monthly depending on how hard or soft your fill water is. I would test it weekly until you know how much change, if any occurs as you add water to make up for evaporation and splashout. If your calcium levels tend to stay pretty much the same then I would just test it monthly. There is NO reason to use your CYA test on a bromine system but if you ever convert to chlorine it might be useful if you use dichlor.

Actually, LaMotte (the OTHER water test kit company) does specify that the CYA test should be carried out between 70-80 deg F in the instructions for some of their colorimeters/turbidity meters for accurate results.

What jumped out at me is that he is using an acid demand test to drop his pH down to only 7.6. I don't believe that this small drop in pH will make any appreciable (or measureable) dent in the high TA of 130 ppm! Now if he were to drop his pH down to around 6.8 or 7.0 then there probably will be a decrease in TA that would be measurable. Or if he continutes to monitor his TA over a period of months while lowering his pH to 7.6 then he might see a measuable drop in TA. Just my 2 cents worth.

I do know that pH balancers have been available for spas for quite some time now and claim to keep the pH balanced for 3 months. Most of these products are either phosphate based buffer systems that can cause problems with calcium hardness in the water and, IMHO, should not be used or borate based buffer systems that are effective in keeping the pH in line for a longer period than without and also tend to reduce sanitizer demand because of their algaestatic action. The only way to automatically adjust pH with a SWG that I know of is by using a pH electrode and a peristaltic dosing pump to add acid to the pool such as is used in the Pool Pilot Total control system. The pH of a pool is a dynamic beast that contains many variables. I seriously doubt that a product that will keep it in 'proper range' for 6 months is any more than just snake oil. Just my 2 cents! (and I would LOVE to be proven wrong on this one! It would make my pool much easier to maintain.)

I agree 1000% (NOT a typo) with chem_geek! He said it better than I ever could! The only caution I would give is about using muriatic acid in the spa. While everything he said about it is true an average sized spa of say, about 400 gallons would usually need the acid measured out by the teaspoon! I personally don't want to try and do that! While dry acid will add sulfates to the water and raise the TDS in an undesirable way it is certainly much safer and easier to measure in the small quantities needed for a spa. (Unless, of course, you want to predilute some muriatic acid and compute how much you need from the dilution. Chem_geek, this is right up your alley!

The CYA test is temperature sensitive! I assume your tub is kept heated? Let the sample reach room temp (between 70-80 degrees F) before doing the CYA test. Lower temps can slow the preciptation reaction down considerably (often seen when testing pools in the winter) and, from my understanding, higher temps cans inhibit it. Both conditions can cause low readings on the test.

My current set up is an inground fiberglass pool/ acrylic spillover spa combo (I finally graduated from a portable hot tub to a pool a few years back). The pool and spa share a pump and filter and normally operate in a reduced spillover mode so they are essntially one body of water. The spa does operate by itself for about an hour a day. This allows me to run a higher free chlorine level in the spa (The spillover is set to just barely trickle so the water does not change out of the spa that fast. I generally keep the pool at about 4 ppm free chlorine and the spa at about 6 ppm. The cya is kept around 70 ppm for both. There is a lot of aeration to the systme with the 2 waterfall pots and the 2 deck jets that operate for about an hour a day. The enitre system is controlled by automation (Goldline Aqualogic PS-8) The pool and spa are heated and the pool is usually kept around 82 degrees and the spa will heat to 100 degrees (where I like it) in about 15 minutes. I have a reverse cycle heat pump so it will operate properly even with the outdoor temperature as low as 40 degrees. I get about a 10 month swim season here in N. Fl. I usualy keep a solar blanket on the spa but not on the pool. I do use heatsavr liquid in both the pool and spa and notice about a 3-4 degree less heat loss overnight than without it. The solar blanket on the spa prevents about another 5 degrees of overnight heat loss in the spa. I do have a 50 ppm borate concentration in the water which gives me a much reduced chlorine demand and also much greater pH stability, pH is maintained at about 7.6. I keep my TA at about 70 ppm (adjusted TA, so my TA without correction for CYA is about 90 ppm...Chemgeek, these are ballpark numbers ) I know this setup is not applicable to most portable spa owners but many of the principles that I emply are such as running a lower TA, using borates, and chlorinating with liquid chlorine. I have kept portable spas (I've owned 2 before I put in my pool/spa) on both chlorine and bromine so I have personal experinece with both systems besides the experiences I have in helping my customers maintain their pools, spas, and combos on various santizier systems including the use of ionizers, ozone, salt genterators, etc. I am in the business to sell chemicals but I don't beleive in selling unnecessary ones nore making pool or spa care any more complicated than it has to be (it's really NOT rocket science). I do believe that a good test kit is a necessity! People will spend thousands on a spa a freak out at the idea of spening about $60 on a GOOD test kit such as a Taylor K-2006 for chlorine or a K-2106 for bromine. Unfortunately, if you are using a biguanide system you will need 2 separate test kits to properly test your water and will spend close to $200 to get good ones such as the Taylor K-1725 for biguanide and hydrogen peroxide and a Taylor K-2005 for all other water tests needed (and some not needed in a biguanide system). No, I don't work for them. They just make the best test kits out there, IMHO!

I see no problem with liquid chlorine being used for spa sanitation or shocking if used properly and proper chlorine levels are maintained. Just for your info: liquid chlorine (sodium hypochlorite) is usuually availble at pool and spa supply stores in 12.5%, 10% and or 6% strengths and available at grocery stores as 6% (Ultra laundry bleach), 5.25% (regular laundry bleach0, and 3% (some bargain priced laundry bleaches). They are EXACTLY the same chemical, omly the amount needed to reach a certain ppm of free chlorine will differ. Liquid chlorine acually has the smallest impact on spa pH and TA of any of the available forms of chlorination! A lot of manufacturers of spa chemicals would loose a lot of money if people realized that some of the expensive chemicals they are using in their spas are just overpriced bleach, baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) , washing soda (sodium carbonate) , and borax (sodium tetraborate)! (Yes, all of those can be and ARE used in pools and spa and sold under brand names for a LOT of money!). I used bleach in my stand alone portable spas for years both as primary sanitizer when I used chlorine and as an oxizider when I used bromine. I currently have a salt system on my pool/spa combo so I am still using bleach, it's just being manufactured IN the water by the salt cell!